Whether the French were first indebted to the Roman school for their knowledge of the art of painting is a matter of some doubt; indeed, several celebrated French writers affirm, that they first had recourse to the Florentine and Lombard schools; while others very strenuously declare, on the other hand, that the Venetian artists were alone resorted to, on account of the remarkable splendour of their colouring.

Mr. Envy, Mr. Superstition, and Mr. Pickthank bore witness against them; and the jurymen, on hearing Faithful affirm that the customs of their town of Vanity were opposed to the spirit of Christianity, brought him in guilty of high treason to Beelzebub.

Men of practical common-sense affirm that no one has a right to power of any kind, unless he can be trusted to forbear employing it to the injury of his fellow-creatures or of himself.

Mr. GYBBON answered:Sir, I am far from thinking a proposition sufficiently defended by an assertion that it was admitted by our predecessors; for though I have no inclination to vilify their memory, I may without scruple affirm, that they had no pretensions to infallibility, and that there are in many of our statutes instances of such ignorance, credulity, weakness, and errour, as cannot be considered without astonishment.

The historian of the sect affirms that, by the wrath of Heaven, a blight fell upon the land in the vicinity of the "bloody town" of Boston, so that no wheat would grow there; and he takes his stand, as it were, among the graves of the ancient persecutors, and triumphantly recounts the judgments that overtook them, in old age or at the parting hour.

But when general aspersions of this sort have been cast upon me, I think myself called upon to declare my principles, and I do with the strictest truth affirm, that I am as loyal a subject, and as firmly attached to the present happy establishment, as any of those who have the greatest places or pensions.

The superstitious affirm, that, in the long winter nights, oaths and groans steal out, muffled, on the rising wind, from the dark shadows of the Lonely House.